BIG OIL: The back story… Desmond died. It really started there (musically). Then the idea came….let’s memorialize him by attaching his name to a collection of songs that had absolutely nothing to do with him, or who he was (though the album and Desmond had one lonely poet in common, and we used the same laundromat). We released it on a Saturday night in May at 11:45 pm at the now fully defunct 441. There was wonder. Wonder with a question mark. It was no surprise that Joe refused to be called a Desmond. To the point where the two had no choice, if the goal indeed was to keep the name alive, but to denounce Desmond. To refuse his identity…whatever it may have been in the first place (and we’ll never know). But now there was stage. There was fun. There was ego, which always makes things temporary. There was the worst process in place for creating an album. There was the best gig the Bitter End ever saw. There was another death, which of course led to death. And then there was in the interim. But there was life in the interim…far beyond any over-mixed crap on iTunes. There was new birth through a true love of music. There was a Bushwick jam. There was the nine of us in August smacking out songs on the spot. There was a failed business plan (well, we’ll see). There were boobs. They needed us…so we said yes. And here we are. And here we go.